And what thou fearst, alike destroyes all hope
Of refuge, and concludes thee miserable
Beyond all past example and future,
To Satan onely like both crime and doom.
O Conscience, into what Abyss of fears
And horrors hast thou driv'n me; out of which
I find no way, from deep to deeper plung'd!

From Paradise Lost, John Milton: 1608 - 1674

The White House, Washington D.C.: Friday Afternoon

The world watched, and the world listened.

As a general rule, when the President of the United States addressed his nation, his words and his image were transmitted instantaneously around the globe. What he said, what he did, affected far more than his own people and country.

This President, known to be a master of words and eloquent delivery, commanded a much greater audience and attention than those in the recent past. Given current events, not much older personal revelations and physical wounds hidden perhaps by lighting or makeup, what he would say was colored by expectation and morbid, if thoroughly human, curiosity.

Some eagerly watched as he ascended the podium that had been erected on the broad South Lawn of the White House, searching for a sign of weakness. There was an election coming and any chink in his armor would be used. Finding no such weakness in his sure and steady step, the firm set of his jaw and the confident, dignified fire in his eyes, they settled back in thwarted political frustration to listen. This wasn't their moment, but it was his. For now they would be gracious.

Some regarded him with pride, sharing in his strength of purpose and what they knew he was about to begin. It was the birth of a hope for the world that had received its first tenuous conception in Helsinki; the child of two leaders prepared to put aside decades of suspicion and nuclear paranoia in favour of the best interests of the world community. This was their leader, by choice and by conviction, and they would follow him without hesitation, through fire and to the ends of the earth.

Certain of them were also painfully aware of the other, secret war - of what this man had been forced to begin.

Sharing that conviction and knowledge, one other regarded him with the same pride and felt a stirring of hope where for so long there had been none. This man might not be his leader by birth or by country, but certainly by choice, and one to be followed wherever able.

Another leader, no less burdened by his office and the weight it carried, watched with that same hope. Hope that mistakes made would not cost him a future. Hope that maybe, just maybe, this President would truly be able to see beyond the last vestiges of a Cold War long gone and join in a new one.

Another, too, felt hope. It was made all the fiercer by love and the determination to protect. There was grief as well, for trials already faced, either together or separately, and what she knew was still to come.

Some few, one man in particular, felt that same pride of place, conviction and hope. His grief for what had happened, what still might happen, was clouded by guilt. Choices had brought them all to this place, and choices still to be made would see them through a murky future.

Far away, one whose only goal was justice also watched, stunned, as his world shifted abruptly and his job suddenly became that much more difficult. His thin smile was tinged with anticipation, though. Difficult, maybe. But not impossible. There was finally hope for something better.

And lastly, one soul watched and raged.

Colored by all these perceptions, the world waited with anticipation to hear what Josiah Bartlet was about to say. All throughout those perceptions, no matter the viewpoint or the motivation, was the final conviction that now, here at this moment, the new millennium was about to begin in earnest.

The world listened, holding its collective breath, as a President began to speak.

"In 'The Secret Pilgrim', John le Carre' tells us that 'it was man who ended the Cold War.' It wasn't weaponry, or technology, or armies, or campaigns. It was just man - who went into the streets, faced the bullets - and said, 'We've had enough.'

"Before that act of courage, we worked against each other, built weapons upon weapons, trained spies upon spies, festered hate upon hate. But we realized, after all the suspicions, after all the propaganda, after all the wasted energy, that we are all just men and women; human, and nothing more.

"Where once we spoke of them, and us, now we see a new us. Thoreau describes 'one vast centipede of a man, good for all sorts of pulling down: and why not then for some kinds of building up? If men could combine thus earnestly and patiently and harmoniously to some really worthy end, what might they not accomplish?' Indeed, what might we not accomplish as the representatives of humanity?

"But even as we form a new us, we are faced with a new them; a them that has no love for country - or even for humankind. A them that holds no value on life. A them that feeds off fears, that manipulates trust and goodness. A them that hides behind our own established order, dealing in terror and masking it with twisted cries of patriotism and nationalism. This them will strike at the very soul of humanity, to rend us in two, to drive their stakes of evil deep within the heart of all that is good. It is a real and imminent danger, and we must act."

Unconsciously, perhaps, the President's brow furrowed and he paused. A deep breath and then he swept his audience with a stern, level gaze, challenging them to question. Nobody dared.

To those who watched, the tensing of his jaw betrayed something else. Not fear. Instead, his blue eyes began to darken with a deep, affronted anger that took them all by surprise. It was then that many, the world over, realized that danger had become a relative thing, that the act about to be played out would change all their lives.

As one, the world once again held its breath and sat forward, eager now to see how their lives and the future were about to be changed.

When he spoke again, that future began to take form...

"Therefore, I am asking Congress for immediate funding for an unprecedented treaty of cooperation among the Russian Law Enforcement, the Kremlin, the CIS countries and their military. I am asking Congress and the world to stand firm, to join forces in a strengthening of weapons inspections, in the strangling of black market rings and of the Russian Mafia before they can steal military hardware and even warheads from silos that are no longer adequately guarded to stop this attack on our very civilized existence.

"We will muster the forces of humanity to fight for its preservation. Terrorists, drug lords, criminals; they are all the same, determined to take what we are not willing to give. There is a beast in view, and it is time to bring it down. It is time to say, 'We've had enough.' This is our world. It is our legacy, and we will not relinquish it to those betrayers of humanity. Not now. Not again. Not ever again."

His eyes, as cold and furious as any of them had even seen, rested on key members of the audience before they burned into the camera, a straight, sure line of passionate determination that shot from television screens all over the world to impale the listeners with his declaration. No one who heard him could doubt the surety of his words. No one could question the reality of his resolution. He had drawn a new line - a clear, undeniable line.

The question now was - would they dare to cross it?

Moscow, Russia: (Time Zone Shift) Thursday Evening

He should not be here.

The street was called Petrowka; and the gray, imposing edifice dominating the other side, like a similar building in the city of London, took its name from that street. Petrowka; home of the Moscow Police and the fourteen divisions of the Criminal Investigation Department.

He really shouldn't be here.

But he was here, so it was time to do what he came here to do, and damn the consequences.

Flipping up the collar of his woolen coat against the cold, Ron Butterfield, Senior Agent in Charge of White House Security and the man personally responsible for the life of the President of the United States, scowled darkly and stepped out on to the street. Only a few cars bothered to slow down and swerve, most making the obligatory honk and the singular universal gesture of extreme displeasure. He ignored them.

Mounting the opposite curb, he paused, staring up at the building's worn facade and the Cyrillic sign over the double doors. The questions started all over again. What was he doing here? 'A leave of absence.' He snorted with self-directed disgust at that thought. That was one hell of an excuse; one he was going to catch just as much hell for when he returned home.

If he still had a job when he returned home. That thought worried him, more than he cared to admit. If Dale Carlyle was doing his job, the President - not the Secretary of the Treasury - had been given any number of options on that point. Failure and honor had demanded the man be given the decision. Stubborn pride had fueled those submissions as well. Resignation on more than one level. At least here, he was doing something; his chosen profession demanded no less. Whether or not it was constructive remained to be seen.

This whole exercise was a long shot at best, a waste of time at worst.

He'd made the decision to come in anger, the need to do something concrete and proactive. Beat the prey to his home ground, beat him to the punch. Go to the source, find the answers there. Set up the ambush and wait...

Butterfield's scowl deepened. Like it would be that easy.

Avoiding direct eye contact, a few pedestrians gave the tall, glowering man a wide berth. Memories in this country, and this city in particular, were long. Mysterious, dark-clad men with unreadable faces were not to be trifled with. Better to be safe than sorry.

Ignoring them with the same indifference as he had the oncoming cars, Butterfield pushed open the doors and went inside.

Russia being one of the few countries where cigarettes were still a national pastime, the hazy, nicotine-stained interior was still strangely familiar. Wandering down the hallway, searching for his goal, Butterfield wasn't surprised at all that the flurry of activity around him struck a cord. The harried faces, shouting voices and curses sounded and looked the same as any police bullpen in the U.S. Cops remained cops the world over, only the language was different; but considering the inflection of said cussing, the meaning remained the same. He didn't need to understand the language to grasp the import.

Butterfield did understand the language, fluently. "Only what I need," he'd told Carlyle. However cryptic an answer that had been, the ability was serving him well.

The guns holstered in shoulder harnesses and on belts made him once again acutely aware that he was unarmed. His hand strayed to the empty space where his shoulder harness and holster should be. It was a naked feeling he didn't at all enjoy.

Understandably, nobody was paying the least bit of attention to him. Putting himself in the path of one charging, paperwork-laden uniformed officer, Butterfield exercised his Russian and inquired evenly, "Excuse me?"

Startled, and scrambling to maintain his hold on the escaping files, the young man flashed his assailant a clearly irritated frown. Categorizing the man as a civilian nuisance, he tilted his head in the appropriate direction and growled curtly, "Front desk."

Satisfied that he'd done his job, and directions given, he managed two more steps before his arm was grabbed and held in a firm, insistent grip that stopped just short of being painful.

"Lieutenant Colonel Vasil'ev Kievich Chichagov," Butterfield demanded softly.

It was the voice that did it. Somehow the young Russian was certain that this man rarely had to deal with the word no, or people who dared use it to his face. Reevaluating the situation, he eyed the tall, mustached stranger for a tense moment. The hand on his arm tightened, probably in warning. Taking the easy way out, and quite probably the safer one, he bellowed over his shoulder, "Colonel!"

"You sure, Di'ak?" a laughing voice called back. "He's in a mood, on the hunt for victims."

"So what else is new?" another voice added.

"It's Friday tomorrow," someone offered helpfully. "Wife's going to visit her mother in Kiev."

The groans he heard at that declaration gave Butterfield a pretty good idea what kind of weekend these people were going to be dealing with. A knowing smile quirked one corner of his mouth. Indeed, some things were the same the world over.

Butterfield's victim sighed heavily with put-upon resignation, and then said, "He's got a visitor." At that, the stranger's hand let go his arm. The relief the young man felt was totally out of proportion to the act.

"And that's going to help?" another voice asked plaintively.

"Better him than us..."

On that optimistic note, a chorus of voices passed on the request, sending the shouts of "Colonel!" deeper into the smoke shrouded bowels of the building.

"WHAT?!" The roar of a disturbed dragon would have seemed quieter by comparison. Somewhere, a door crashed open. More than a few people jumped. A few others hunkered down over the paperwork on their desks, seeking whatever poor shelter they could find.

"He is displeased," somebody observed dryly.

"Give that detective a promotion."

"I'd rather have a raise."

The snorts that accompanied that plaintive response were a clear indication as to how likely a possibility that was.

Gathering up his files, the instigator of the search chose the better part of valor and escaped, throwing an accusing glare at Butterfield over his shoulder as he scurried away to find a hiding place of his own.

Butterfield didn't have long to wait before the sea of milling bodies parted and Lieutenant Colonel Chichagov made his appearance. The woken dragon had become an angry Russian bear. Judging from the hairy forearms revealed by rolled-up shirtsleeves, a man only slightly less hirsute and burly than his ursine Siberian cousins.

"This had better be good!" He roared like a bear, too.

Still, Butterfield had no doubts that it would be good. As a matter of courtesy, he stepped forward and inquired politely, "Colonel Chichagov?"

"I am," he answered with a snap and an impersonal nod. Unimpressed with his visitor, Chichagov made no effort to hide his annoyance as he eyed the tall, mustached stranger up and down dismissively. "Your Russian is too good to be any foreign reporter. So that makes you either a diplomat or a well-heeled tourist. Either one is a waste of my time."

More than a few mocking laughs accompanied that observation.

Butterfield smiled thinly. "I'm looking for someone."

"Then you want the Operative Search Division. This is Homicide/Burglary. Murder? Dead bodies, messy crime scenes, questionable motives or simple human greed and idiocy? You are wasting my time." He glared at his crew. More than a few averted their eyes. "Who let this man in here?"

"Di'ak went that way," someone offered, thereby relieving himself and his comrades of any remaining guilt or punishment.

Chichagov swore.

"You are who I want to speak with." Butterfield had never been accused of giving up easily.

Sensing this, but not giving any ground, Chichagov asked sarcastically, "Is this person dead? Otherwise you continue to waste my time."

"Dead?" Butterfield's eyes narrowed. "Not yet."

"Interesting semantic choice." Despite himself, the Russian was becoming interested. Crossing his arms, eyes sparking with wry amusement, he asked dryly, "Does he have a name?"

"Dmitrii Zhidimirich Volkov."

Silence fell across the bullpen, and all eyes riveted on the two men.

Pretty sure he'd just heard a pin drop, Butterfield waited patiently. Their collective reaction to the name had already told him volumes. Their boss's reaction told him even more.

Head to one side, Chichagov reached up and absently scratched the side of his nose. Giving the stranger the benefit of the doubt, he demanded in an exasperated tone of voice, "What has that rabid little prick of a wolf done this time?"

Taking a few steps forward, Butterfield leaned in and spoke softly, pitching his voice so only Chichagov could hear. "On three known occasions he has attempted to assassinate the President of the United States."

To his credit, the Russian didn't flinch; neither at the man's flat, dangerous tone of voice nor the equally dangerous invasion of his own personal space. Dark brows slanted into a deep frown. His broad shoulders stiffening, Chichagov indicated with a quick jerk of his head that he should be followed.

Satisfied that he'd made his intended point, Butterfield accepted the invitation.

Once again, the officers and detectives parted, this time with a great deal more curiosity in their gazes. Only after Chichagov had reached his office, let the stranger in and slammed the door did anyone dare move. Someone coughed, breaking the spell. Then the muttering began. The general consensus was that it was going to be one hell of a weekend.

As the door closed behind him, Butterfield gave the hard-copy files piled nearly to the small office's ceiling a cursory glance. Behind a desk nearly buried under similar piles, he spied a corkboard on the wall. Professional curiosity drew his attention to the crime scene photos of mutilated women's bodies that covered it. Dispassionately, he counted seven victims and it only took him a moment to instinctively note that the same, brutal hand had killed all of them.

One brow rose. The Moscow C.I.D. had a serial killer on their hands. No wonder the man was in a mood.

Without conscious thought, the markers went through his mind...

- Stranger killing, bodies dumped without regard to location, affection or familiarity.
- Ambush killing, the victims had no chance to defend themselves. A coward, emotionally and sexually insecure.
- Defaced, made into objects without humanity.

All the victims bore the same marks, the same total disregard for their humanity and individuality. Except one. Butterfield studied that photo as he heard Chichagov move up behind him.

"Who are you?" the Chief of the Moscow Division of Burglary/Homicide demanded. There was no welcome in his voice.

Never taking his eyes off that last photo, Butterfield reached into his jacket and removed his ID and passport. Sandwiched between both went the small leather case holding his Treasury Badge. Absently reaching back, he handed all three to the Russian. He noted that the last woman's face had been covered. A dirty, carefully placed square of linen hid her ravaged features from the world. He knew full well that the crime scene investigators hadn't put it there.

One brow rose. Interesting...

"United States Treasury." Handing the ID, badge and passport back to Butterfield, Chichagov negotiated a stack of files and made his way to the small sanctuary behind his desk. He didn't sit down. "You're a long way from home, Special Agent Butterfield."

Slipping the documents back into his jacket, Butterfield merely shrugged and made no comment.

Accepting that as an answer, Chichagov asked sarcastically, "May I make the assumption, bad habit though that is, that you are not a mere functionary?"

"Senior Agent in Charge of White House Security."

"You are the President's man." A statement, not a question.

"I am."

Chichagov let his breath out in a huff, almost a growl. "You really should not be here."

Butterfield laughed shortly, reluctantly tearing his eyes away from that last photo and giving Chichagov his full attention. "Tell me something I don't already know."

"That, my tall friend, is my line. Obviously, you're here for information." Chichagov spread his arms, a gesture of profound displeasure and frustration. "If you think the GRU or the FSB have let me know what goes on in the wider world, then think again. Why is the American President's senior body guard in my office?"

"You've seen the news?"

A United States Secret Service agent in his office? Why? Chichagov wasn't an idiot or a fool. Having already been given that familiar name and the reasons, the conclusion was fairly obvious. "Only the explosion in the... what do you call it? The -," he paused, searching for the English equivalent, "- Oval Office?" Keeping his expression under stern restraint, he weighed his visitor critically, and then asked matter-of-factly, "Volkov did this?"

Butterfield's flat, unspeaking eyes prolonged the moment, then he nodded.

"That's one. The other two?"

"An explosive on the rotor housing of Marine One, bringing it down..."

"Not surprising that wasn't an accident." Waving a curt, dismissive hand, Chichagov interrupted anything Butterfield might have added. "Your military is no less diligent than ours when it comes to executive transport. This too, I already know - if not the full truth. The third?"

Butterfield's expression darkened. "A shooting at the President's private residence early last Sunday morning." He left it at that.

"It failed?"

"Obviously."

"No need to get touchy." Watching the American with a keenly observant eye, Chichagov asked again, more insistently, "Why are you here?"

That was a question Butterfield himself didn't know all the answers to. Why was he here? Hopefully, doing his job. Coldly, he began to explain, "The GRU, FSB, the Kremlin and God knows however many other alphabets involved in this have been no more open with information to my people than they have to you. They will barely admit that First Lieutenant Volkov was once a government employee."

Chichagov sneered. "He has other employers now."

"This we already know."

"Employers whom the powers that be in the Kremlin are just as equally reluctant to put a name to." Chichagov's short laugh was bitter. "Of course they won't. What did you expect? The Red Mafiya..." - he gave that last word a Slavic inflection - "... does not exist. Except where certain bank accounts are concerned, of course. Many bank accounts, as I'm sure you are already aware. So you come to me. You are certain Volkov is involved?"

"Yes. Once it clears channels, the FBI's top ten will confirm that."

"By the time it trickles down channels to me, it will be old news," Chichagov muttered. "Thank God for the Internet," he added, with no little cynicism. With a heavy sigh, he asked carefully, "How can you be sure it's him?"

Smiling thinly, Butterfield's only answer was, "I have my methods."

"Sherlock Holmes has his methods. It would do well for you to remember that I am not Watson. Vague, mysterious answers do not impress me, nor do they amuse me." Still, he didn't ask for any further elaboration. They were both professionals. Rubbing his eyes tiredly, Chichagov muttered, "It has finally come to this."

Inclining his head, acknowledging the deduction, Butterfield said, "You understand?"

"The Mafiya are all over this city, my friend. This country. People talk. Rumor and where it leads is my stock in trade. Finding the truth in those rumors is never quite that easy, but this one is. Tempers are running hot. I saw the speech, his declaration. Even before that very public assertion, your President - what he intends and what he promises to do - has not made himself very popular with these people, or those they deal with."

Butterfield snorted derisively. "That is an extreme understatement."

"Not where their profit margins are concerned, it isn't." Eyeing Butterfield suspiciously, Chichagov asked carefully, "Given how that profit is spread throughout what is left of my country's bureaucracy, why come to me? How do you know my next stop won't be the local street boss? And don't - " he raised his hand, forestalling comment and added with a wry smile, "- tell me you have your methods. No doubt you've seen my files, my service records. You wouldn't be here otherwise. You know what I'm paid, what I have to deal with. What about my bank accounts?"

Butterfield's eyes went back to the corkboard, the victims lined up in death. "A Lieutenant Colonel after twenty-eight years in service, not a full division director. Arrest and conviction stats that would be the envy of any law enforcement agency, not the brush-off of a bought man." Again, his attention went to that last woman, her face covered.

Shrugging, Butterfield finished with simple conviction, "You're a cop."

Inclining his head, Chichagov accepted the compliment in the spirit it was given. Nothing else needed to be said. "So you want our mangy little wolf, Volkov?"

"Yes. And the people holding his leash."

"Volkov we may by some miracle be able to do, if he is here and hasn't gone too deep to ground. His handlers? Keep wishing. You're sure he's back in this country?"

"Or on his way. Success or failure -" Butterfield nearly faltered at that " - he wouldn't leave his escape route to chance. Not with his training. He's going to try."

"And you are leaving nothing to chance. Good." Chichagov huffed disgustedly. "The GRU are nothing if not thorough. They trained that boy well - too well."

"Exactly. With his face plastered on every U.S. police bulletin board within hours, not to mention internationally, he'd need to be off and moving before the boom was lowered." Butterfield smiled thinly. "Yes, you have to love the Internet."

"The boom?" It took Chichagov a moment to figure out the colloquialism, but when he did he chuckled dryly. "Yes, the boom. That's our Dmitrii, ever fast on his feet."

"You know him?"

"I know him. Surely your... methods told you this?" Opening a drawer, Chichagov began rummaging around inside. "The original profile given to the reporters, that was yours?" Cursing softly, he closed that drawer and opened another.

"The profile was mine," Butterfield admitted, watching him curiously. "Not one of my wiser decisions."

"Credit where credit is due, Special Agent. If it had been anyone other than Volkov, as a proactive technique, it would have worked."

Butterfield shook his head with self-imposed disgust. "Hind-sight gives me nothing."

"It is better than nothing. Still, it was not well done." Finding what he was looking for, Chichagov pulled out a small, holstered automatic. Checking the safety, he pulled the clip, noting that it was loaded. Shoving it home with a click, he continued, "Dmitrii Volkov is motivated by three main psychological triggers. Profit and challenge are two. I'll do you the credit and the compliment of assuming you have deduced this already."

Butterfield nodded curtly.

"The third trigger? That one is more complicated. He likes to hurt people. Oh, he enjoys the physical aspects of a good beating, but considers that a crude rough, something a true artist only resorts to as a last measure. Abuse on all levels; physical, mental and spiritual. That brings him a joy that borders on true ecstasy. Nothing else compares."

Making direct eye contact, Chichagov gave him the last. "Combine all that, whatever underlying motivations are in his twisted soul, with an ego that knows no bounds, and you've bought yourself a world of trouble. In his own mind, a peasant's mind I must emphasize, he is better than anyone else. No aristocrat could ever hope to compare, and he'll stop at nothing to prove it. That profile of yours..." The Russian shook his head grimly. Holding out the holstered weapon to Butterfield, he finished, "Not well done at all. You've challenged him, given him a motive and a potential victim that incorporates all of his prime triggers. His massive ego completes the equation and will allow nothing less than absolute conquest and victory."

"I have since revised my profile," Butterfield commented dryly. The Russian detective had, in only few short minutes, confirmed his decision to come here. The man understood; more so than he had dared hope.

Chichagov said nothing more, continuing to hold out the holstered weapon to the American.

Accepting the gun, a Makarov nine-millimeter automatic - standard issue for the Moscow police - Butterfield ran through the same checks Chichagov had just done. Then he looked up and asked cautiously, "Why?"

Shrugging into his coat, Chichagov smiled. "For the same reason you gave me. When all is said and done, we're the same thing. That's why you're here."

Butterfield slipped the holstered weapon onto his belt, setting it comfortably on his hip. With one raised brow, he waited for the Russian to finish his observation. He suspected what it was, and was no less touched when the words were honestly said.

"You're a cop, a professional." This time Chichagov's smile broadened. "If you're going to be at my back, in Volkov's playground, I want you armed. We'll find your answers, or at least the beginnings of a few." His expression clouded with sudden uncertainty. "You are unarmed, correct?"

Ron Butterfield bared his teeth in an equally broad though far more forbidding grin, letting that be his answer.

Giving a Slavic shrug, Chichagov rolled his eyes and opened the office door. "You're one of those, are you? This is going to be fun."

Butterfield had his doubts about the fun, but for the first time in months felt he was actually on the right track. Whatever might come of this, he had the certain conviction that he'd made the right decision. Pausing as the Russian held the door, he jerked his head towards the crime scene photos on the corkboard. "That woman, the last victim."

His expression suddenly stilled, giving Chichagov a colder air. "You are certain she is the last?"

"For now, perhaps. She knew her killer."

"Or he knew her."

"Amounts to the same thing. This was not a stranger killing. He covered her face."

"Giving her some dignity in death, if not her path from this sad life." Letting out a long, tired breath, the weight of the world suddenly on his shoulders, Chichagov said, "He may not have stopped himself from killing her, didn't want to stop, but he felt remorse afterwards. Covering her face, he hid from her and his actions. This one, he regrets."

"But she won't be the last."

"No, she won't. Like the sadistic worm you're hunting, this predator enjoys himself too much to stop. There is a difference between them, though."

Butterfield turned away from the photo. His observation and implied question had been the final test of this man, whether he was up to the chase. This last would be the confirmation.

"Volkov," Chichagov stated flatly and with certainty, "regrets nothing, except this: Failure, he will not accept. Do you understand this?"

"It's the one thing, however slight, we have in common." Butterfield's tone of voice left little doubt that failure for him was also not an option.

"Good. Then we also understand each other. We could both lose our jobs over this; end up on the other side of those bars reserved for the breakers of laws, not those who uphold them. Bureaucracy has little place for honor." Chichagov's easy smile disappeared; replaced with one many would have flinched at. Butterfield did not. Another point in the American's favor. "I do not intend to fail either. Shall we go?"

The White House, Washington DC: (Time Zone Shift) Friday Evening

Rear Admiral Robert Hackett looked at his watch. A shadow of annoyance crossed his face and he told Charlie Young, "The President is avoiding me." The ranking medic's voice retained its normal affability, but there was more than a hint of accusation in his tones.

"You just figured that out?" Although well aware of the Admiral's annoyance, the personal aide to the President of the United States made no effort to be conciliatory. He had problems of his own. Tearing his eyes away from the letter in his hand, Young glanced with obvious foreboding and reluctance at the closed door leading to the Oval Office.

He did not want to go in there, not with Admiral Hackett hovering just outside, not with this, and certainly not again. Not today, at any rate.

"A fairly easy diagnosis and deduction." Taking into account the reserve in the young man's usually lively features, Hackett further observed, a little more sympathetically, "Just as easy to apply those same observational skills and deduce that you are avoiding him."

Generally resentful of the entire situation, Young scowled at the letter.

"Care to talk about it?"

"I'm trying to cultivate a sense of calm in the face of overwhelming odds here, sir."

Hackett smiled. "And I'm not helping?"

"Not unless you can take on a certain stubborn, reactive, frustrating Secret Service Agent who seems to delight lately in making my life a daily nightmare."

"I have enough problems with a certain stubborn, reactive and equally frustrating executive patient who delights in making my life a nightmare."

"You've got rank," Young pointed out, not quite sure if he was being mocked or not.

"He outranks me."

Young smirked. There hadn't been any mockery in that, just a simple statement of fact. It made him feel a little better to know he wasn't alone.

Hackett looked at his watch again, and insisted with returning impatience, "I do need to see him, Charlie. Preferably before the sun sets."

Pushing back his chair and standing up, Young straightened his shoulders. He still had the letter in hand. Couldn't forget that, could he? "Wait here."

"Was that supposed to be funny?"

"I used to understand the definition of that word, till I started working here."

"Life lessons."

"I could do with a few less."

Knocking on the door, Young waited for the muffled response of, "Come in." A quick calculation of the irritation levels in that voice, comparing it to known parameters, and then figuring the odds, he went in. "Mr. President?" He openly winced when he saw the man stuffing papers into his brief case.

"I'm about to call it a day, Charlie." Bartlett took off his glasses and gave his aide his full attention. "You've got something for me?"

Was that executive censure in his voice? "Do you want them in order of importance, or annoyance, sir?"

"You choose... carefully."

"Thank you, sir." Oh, yeah. Definitely a warning there. Young bravely ploughed forward. "Before doing so, may I respectfully remind you that I am only the messenger? And while I know you have a love of Roman history, I don't? I have no intention of falling under the shadow of 'bearer of bad tidings', nor do I have any inclination, now or ever, to fall on my sword."

The President's mouth quirked. "You're in a mood."

"Occupational hazard," Young muttered.

"Snippy, too." This time he did smile.

Embolden by that small encouragement, Young made a quick grab and recover, choosing the lesser of the two evils he's been left with. "Admiral Hackett is in the outer office, sir."

The easy smile disappeared and Bartlet involuntarily looked at the bandages on his left hand, the lighter dressings that had only been substituted the night before. Using his right hand, he picked up his briefcase and snapped a little curtly, "Reschedule."

"Sir..."

"Reschedule."

"He had an appointment."

"Not tonight, Charlie." Bartlet ripped the words out impatiently. "I'm not in the mood to be poked and prodded tonight."

"Sir, you had an appointment." Young didn't feel safe enough to point out that nobody within a thirty-foot radius seemed to be in the mood this evening.

"Tell him to come back tomorrow."

"Tell him?" Young could already sense defeat on this issue, but he had to try. "He's a two-star Admiral. He outranks me."

"I outrank him."

"So I've been told."

"Count 'em, Charlie. Fifty stars." With a deliberately casual motion, Bartlet turned towards the portico.

"Right now, all I can count up to is two." Wisely, Young shelved whatever arguments he'd left on that one. A lost cause. That still left the letter, though. "There's one more item, sir."

"So close," the President growled as he paused, halfway to freedom. A sudden realization struck him and his back stiffened. "He did it again, didn't he?"

Young's shoulders slumped, doing his best Josh Lyman impersonation. "Yes, sir."

Bartlet turned around, eyes flashing with irritation. "How many does this make?"

"Three, sir."

"I thought you could only count to two?"

"It's a situational skill, Mr. President." Young held out the letter. "Agent Carlyle delivered Ron Butterfield's latest resignation request about a half hour ago."

Bartlet stared at the letter, lips tightening. "Is it any different from the other two?"

"No, sir. Carbon copy."

"At least he doesn't have to be creative." Shaking his head, Bartlet had bridled anger in his voice when he said, "No."

"Sir..."

"I said no. If Ron Butterfield wants to fall on his sword, he can do so in person, to my face, and accept my refusal. Why the hell is he sending these to me, not the Secretary of the Treasury?"

"Agent Butterfield's taken a leave of absence, sir." If they knew, nobody on the security details was saying where. Nobody on the staff had the nerve to ask, and the one man who did have the authority to demand an explanation had so far failed to do so.

Leaving Charlie Young stuck in the middle of the bouncing resignations and recurring mood swings.

"Granted," the President was saying, "leaving any number of those letters with his second, no doubt to be delivered daily till he returns. All of which have been, and will continue to be refused." Truly angry now, Bartlet whipped around and stalked towards the portico. "Convey to Agent Carlyle my extreme displeasure with these... missives. If any more should find their way to your desk, and then to mine, there will be a purge. After said purge, everyone will still have their jobs, but they'll wish they could be carried home on their shields."

Not giving the agents outside a chance to do it for him, Bartlet unthinkingly grabbed for the portico door handle. Right hand, left hand, in the heat of anger and frustration, he'd forgotten. A sudden, tearing pain from the palm of his hand. It had been the left hand.

Just his luck.

"Shit!" He yanked the hand back, resisting the urge to curl his fingers around the wound. "Of all the stupid..." his voice trailed off with a hiss.

The agents outside came to attention. One finished opening the door, a studied bland expression on his face. The executive expletive had been carefully noted.

Nobody dared say a word.

Except Charles Young. Stepping forward, with evident concern he asked, "Sir, are you all right? Did you..."

"Never mind, Charlie," Bartlet said through clenched teeth, not about to let his aide finish the sentence.

"Admiral Hackett is..."

Bartlet turned and glared warningly at the young man. "Swords and shields, Charlie. Leave it." Then he smiled to take some of the sting out. Charlie wasn't anymore responsible for his hand than he was for Ron Battlefield's antics. "Reschedule Admiral Hackett and pass on my message to Agent Carlyle. Then go home."

"Right," Young muttered dubiously. Caught between a rock and a hard place, he watched as the President, left hand in his jacket pocket, stepped through the portico doors and headed towards the Residence. One of the agents caught his eye and nodded to him as he closed the doors.

Did that man just roll his eyes?

Thinking about it, Young shook his head. "Nah." Some things were well outside the realm of possibility.

For one long moment he stood there, staring out the windows and counting the beats. Decisions like the one he was about to make were not part of the job description. Coming to a decision, Butterfield's latest resignation letter still in hand, he went back to the outer office.

Hackett stood up as the door opened and Charlie came in. "Well?" he asked hopefully.

"We have a problem, Admiral."

Hackett sighed. "Still trying to find that definition of fun, Charlie?"

"Oh, yeah. And I know just the person to help."

Turning towards the Residence, the President heard the footsteps, the clump of multiple size-nines on brick as his ever-present shadows fell in behind him. He briefly reflected with some bitterness that he should be used to it by now, if not entirely comfortable. It also occurred to him that for all their training they might just be capable of walking with a softer tread, not sound like a herd of wired, heavily armed elephants.

The cynicism of that thought grated on him and Bartlet's lips tightened with growing irritation, then a flash of anger. He was used to it. For all the Constitution might - Sam was still working on that - guarantee him the right to privacy, it didn't seem to apply here. It never did.

Used to it? Comfortable? Maybe, but not this time.

The President just wasn't in the mood.

"Okay, fellas. That's it." Coming to an abrupt halt, Bartlet rounded on the trailing agents. Oddly pleased at the shocked expressions on their faces - like that happened all that often - he managed to temper some of his simmering anger and demanded coolly, "Could you just... hang back a bit? Give me some room here? You're..." He let out a long breath, losing the battle with his frustration. Shaking his head, he found his self-control and finished evenly, "You're using up all the oxygen in the vicinity."

The agents stared at their Commander in Chief, blinking slowly across a sudden, ringing silence. Conflicting orders fought with respect, then the head of detail nodded. A quick glance the President didn't catch into the shadows by one pillar, and he stood back, his partners following, giving his charge what he could clearly see was some much needed personal space.

None of the agents let the man out of their direct line of sight, though. Certain rules could not be forgotten.

It was a distinction Bartlet didn't miss, but he was prepared to take what he could get.

"You scare the hell out them, sometimes. You know that?"

Bartlet turned sharply, too startled by the familiar voice making the observation to offer any objection other than an undignified yelp of, "Damn it, Leo!" And there he was, bundled in a thick coat and sitting smugly on the bench next to the pillar. "What are you doing lurking out here?"

The White House Chief of Staff's soft chuckle was suspiciously devoid of any sympathy. "Freezing," was the only explanation he gave. The lurking reference he let slide, although that was exactly what he was doing. Charlie had given him the heads up earlier that the President might be trying to ditch his appointment with Admiral Hackett.

Which was exactly what he was doing. No surprises there. However mercurial his old friend could be, Jed Bartlet's consistency on certain matters was a sure bet. Shrugging deeper into the folds of his coat, McGarry stood up and added, "Really freezing."

Clad only in his suit jacket, Bartlet replied dryly, "Then go back inside where it's warm." Like his friend before him, his voice lacked any hint of sympathy. "You can lurk in comfort there."

"I am not lurking," McGarry grinned shamelessly. Cornering him on Hackett may have been his excuse, but he had other reasons for being here. "And right now, the atmosphere seems plenty warm enough out here."

"Are you trying to be funny?"

"At least you didn't call me a thin-blooded wimp."

"You are a thin-blooded wimp," Bartlet told him, regarding his friend with reluctant amusement, "and you are trying to be funny."

"Am I succeeding?"

"Do you want an honest answer?"

"This is Washington. What's the average life expectancy of an honest anything?"

Bartlet's laugh, relaxed and just as honest as the light-hearted banter they'd both been missing these long months, was exactly what McGarry wanted to hear. Taking a chance at souring it a little, he looked pointedly at the left hand Bartlet had thrust into his jacket pocket and asked carefully, "What'd you do to your hand?"

Shoving the hand in question deeper into his pocket, Bartlet answered defensively, "I didn't do anything to my hand." He put the emphasis on the possessive, hoping Leo would catch the hint.

He didn't. "You've got your hand in your pocket."

"I can't put my hand in my pocket?"

"You usually put both hands in your pockets."

"I'm carrying a briefcase, Sherlock." Triumphantly, he held up the object in question.

"In that case, you never do put the other hand in your pocket. Simple observation, Watson." McGarry watched as the arm holding the briefcase dropped in defeat. The easy smile disappeared from Bartlet's face as well. A brief stab of guilt that he'd managed to deflate the mood, and then he rallied. It had to be asked. "What'd you do to it?"

'Damn near got it blown off,' came the thought Bartlet couldn't quite stop, but managed somehow not to say out loud. Leo didn't need to hear that, and quite frankly he didn't want to remember. Still, there was no hiding from that direct a question. Not from him. "I banged it, okay?"

"You banged it?"

"I banged it."

McGarry thought about it for a moment, then shrugged. "Okay."

"Okay?" Bartlet echoed suspiciously. "That's it? Just okay?"

"It's your hand."

"Finally! Somebody admits to that basic fact! My hand, my problem." He gave McGarry an accusing glare. "And I'm not catching much sympathy or respect here."

"You've always got my respect, Mr. President..."

"Really?"

"... but my sympathy? I'm not the one hiding from a two-star navy medic."

"I am not hiding." Like Leo would actually believe that? Hell, he hadn't even managed to convince himself what he was hiding from.

"Coulda fooled me."

"Or Charlie?" Bartlet winced. There was a touch of resentment there, that glaring lack of privacy, and Bartlet was glad of the semi-darkness that hid his features.

He should have known Leo would hear it anyway. "I'll take the fifth on that one," he said evenly, admitting nothing.

"How convenient, for you and Mr. Young." Bartlet drawled, the banter still there but now including a thread of warning. "That amendment needs to be reworked."

"It's getting warmer out here again." McGarry ignored the warning. "You can't hide from him forever."

"Watch me."

"I have, Mr. President." That was the sound byte McGarry had been waiting for, the lead-in to the problem he knew was really bothering the Leader of the Free World, and his oldest friend. Right now, he knew as well which one he needed to talk to the most. "And you're scaring the hell out of me."

"I thought I was scaring the hell out of the Secret Service?"

It was a brush-off; one McGarry wasn't about to let him get away with. What he'd seen, what he'd heard during those terrible minutes at Manchester last week had to be addressed, opened and drained or the wound would continue to fester. There was more to this than simply being frightened, of being cornered by an enemy who may now have a name and a face, but was still out there somewhere, still hunting.

There had been anger in that torn up, bullet-pocked hallway, fueled by a needless death and a rage that burned soul deep and primal in its intensity. A rage totally alien to the compassionate nature of the man who had felt it. It had frightened Bartlet, adding to a burden McGarry was all too aware the man already carried. Death, choices, responsibility and the price paid by the conscience of the man who had to make them.

He knew as well that Josiah Bartlet was perfectly capable of assuming the entire burden, the guilt and the sin, and leave nothing for those who loved him to share.

Leo McGarry wasn't about to let him. "Mr. President, you're only human. What happened..."

"Is over," the President cut him off, his voice harsh and raw. "Let's move on."

"It's far from over, and you know it. This is just the beginning of the war, and if you can't come to terms with the decisions you had to make, the decisions you still have to make, then we've already lost. Shareef..."

"This has nothing to do with Shareef." The warning was sharper.

McGarry ignored it. "It has everything to do with Shareef and this insane need of yours to find a moral high ground you think you've lost, a justification for doing what you know was right in the first place but can't make yourself believe."

Explosions... gunshots... too much blood... Bartlet closed his eyes and demanded softly, "Do you actually want to do this now, Leo?"

"Are you going to keep hiding from the truth?"

Opening his eyes, pushing the memory of sound and fury away, Bartlet gave his full attention to the man patiently waiting for an answer. Was he hiding? And if so, hiding from whom? God, or those people he knew loved him, who seemed to have a tighter hold on reality than he did? Bartlet didn't know, wasn't quite sure there was an answer. Or if there was, one he could accept.

Bartlet let out a long, audible breath. Maybe now was the time. "Jekyll and Hyde, Leo."

McGarry just stood there and waited.

What more did he want? "I didn't want to kill Shareef. That order..."

"I made you."

"You didn't make me do anything, Leo. You advised me, I listened."

"And then you made an informed choice," McGarry insisted stubbornly. "It's what you do. Quit looking for a black or white. There isn't one."

"That's what I do?" Bartlet asked incredulously, "Assassinate people?"

"If necessary."

"Necessary and expedient. How long before that excuse becomes too easy?"

"It won't. I trust you."

"You trust me? When I can't even trust myself. That night, in the hallway..." Bartlet turned as close to pleading a glance on his friend he could manage, desperate for an answer, perhaps absolution. "I wanted to kill, Leo. If Volkov..." He faltered, the name and the memory and feel of Paulson's dead body choking him for a moment, for all it gave him a target for the rage he could feel growing once more. A rage that terrified him. "If he'd been there, in front of me at that moment, I'd have gladly done the deed and not looked back. Where's the difference, Leo? He's a killer, I'm a killer. Where's the moral high ground?" He laughed shortly, bitterly. "Do you trust me now?"

"Yes."

Bartlet was left speechless by the strength of conviction in his friend's voice. "How?" he asked hesitantly, torn by conflicting emotions.

"Because you can still ask those questions, sir," McGarry spoke with assurance, as confident of his convictions as he was of the man standing in front of him. "When you can't ask them, that's when I'll worry. Leave Hyde where he belongs, with the library books. This is real, and he doesn't belong here. You do."

"I frightened her, Leo." The words were torn from his soul. Her hand tightening on his shoulder, the fear in her eyes. Her fear of what she saw in him. "What she saw..."

"She saw a human being, Mr. President. Her husband, the man she loves."

"A murderer, with more to come."

The President still didn't believe him; McGarry could see that and it nearly broke his determination. "You're a good man," he said with the rock-solid conviction he always granted his friend. "You don't ever need to prove that to me. You don't need to prove it to her. I could never be convinced that you would act solely for personal gratification. This is a thing that we must do, choices forced on us. And we're not doing it for you. We're doing it for the office, for the country and for those we have already lost in this conflict."

McGarry took a deep breath and shrugged. He almost had the man convinced. "And if, by taking this action, we can also keep you safe, win you a measure of justice. well sue me for considering that to be a good thing. Abbey knows this. Talk to her and you'll see I'm right."

Bartlet smiled thinly, still not completely swayed. "Maybe."

"Maybe?" McGarry's brows rose with mock surprise. It hadn't been a complete victory, but at the very least he had the man thinking. "My best speech in years and all I get is a maybe? You're a tough audience."

"You're a lousy camp counselor."

Laughing at the mental image that conjured up, McGarry retorted archly, "Try telling that to your staff."

"How are you doing?" Bartlet asked, changing a painful subject and ashamed to belatedly realize that he wasn't the only one caught in the middle of a moral quandary here. Leo had his own burdens to carry, not including those of his Commander in Chief.

"I'm fine," McGarry shrugged dismissively, masking the guilt that had been eating away at him since this whole nightmare had begun. "I got you into this, I'll get you out."

"You didn't get me in to this, Leo."

McGarry laughed at that. "New Hampshire, Mr. President. 'It's what's new'? Maybe you should have stuck with that. 'Bartlet for America' hasn't exactly been an easy ride."

"My turn, Leo."

McGarry blinked with momentary confusion. "What?"

"I trusted you then." Bartlet pulled his hand out of his pocket and put it on Leo's shoulder. The white dressings were a stark contrast to the darker background of the man's coat. A reminder as well, but perhaps no longer quite so painful a one. Squeezing gently, he finished softly, "And I trust you now. Choices, Leo. Mine as well as yours."

McGarry swallowed hard. "Yes, sir."

Bartlet smiled and nodded, not quite trusting himself to speak further. Maybe it was enough. He turned away, for the moment content with his own thoughts and determined to try and finish what Leo McGarry had begun. Abbey was waiting for him. "Do me a favor, will you?" he called over his shoulder.

"Sir?" Damn, but that man wasn't easy to follow. The thought brought a smile to McGarry's face.

"Find out where the hell Ron Butterfield is and get him in my office. I need to have... words with him."

"Words?" McGarry echoed dubiously. He didn't like the sound of that. "He's taken a leave of absence, sir." And that was the full extent of his knowledge. Where the White House Senior Agent had got himself off to was as much a mystery to him as it was to the President.

"Leave of absence my ass," Bartlet snapped. "Get him back, now."

"Yes, sir." So much for getting things back on track. Oh, but that meeting was going to be fun. Having some small idea what had prompted the request - he'd warned Butterfield that the noblese oblige was not going to be appreciated - McGarry had no doubts he was going to be playing reluctant referee.

McGarry watched the President leave, turning down the bend in the portico with the Secret Service Agents keeping to a respectful distance. His stride seemed to have a force of purpose that had been missing lately. He briefly toyed with the idea of reminding the President that a very unhappy Admiral was waiting in the outer office. He quickly decided to leave that with Charlie.

He had started this with the hope of finding some peace for his friend's troubled soul, and perhaps his own. He thought he had succeeded in some small respect and hopefully Abbey would be able to finish it. In fact he was sure she would, and knew as well that it was a long time coming. That Jed had managed in turn to provide him with the same small measure of absolution had been an unexpected bonus, and served to strengthen his resolve to see this through to the bitter end.

It was a war they were going to win. They just had to take care of a few smaller battles along the way.

Bartlet strode briskly through the Residence. His conversation with Leo McGarry had helped to quiet some of the turmoil that had roared within him since that outburst made from the floor of the upper landing at the Manchester house. Quiet the uproar, but not still it. He was still upset by the darkness of the emotions he had given voice to, and that agitation lent energy to his movements.

Leo, bless him, had done his best to offer a measure of absolution, argued calmly and reasonably the naturalness of such a reaction, that it was not what you said but what you did which counted. Had pointed out that the President had a responsibility that went beyond the personal, but also that this was a war. A war the likes of which none of them had ever thought to engage in. Unconventional and lacking the traditional battle lines, but with the potential to be every bit as catastrophic.

The Chief of Staff had done his best to drive home that a momentary surge of rage, induced by shock, fear, grief and pain, did not necessarily render morally suspect any decision made under its influence. Volkov had to be dealt with, and McGarry had done everything to convince his President and friend of that necessity, quietly reassuring Bartlet that his repugnance at the desire for vengeance that had originally prompted the order should not prevent him from doing what was necessary.

"You're a good man."

God, how he wanted to believe that.

The conversation had soothed the President, helped release him from the inability to take action for fear that it was the rage and not necessity that drove him. He had never experienced such murderous emotions before. Not even the death of Morris Tolliver had unleashed such a cauldron of boiling rage. He had not thought himself capable of so badly desiring the death of another human being, and the revelation had shaken his perception of himself badly.

What else am I capable of? What darkness lies inside?

McGarry's pointing out dryly that the fact he was capable of asking such questions would suggest that Mr. Hyde was in no danger of taking up permanent residence any time soon, had been a balm to his bruised sensibility. So had the realization that his old friend carried such a weight of guilt over the events of that night in Manchester.

Masterful persuasion had always been Leo's style. Still, it was amazing what comfort a session of mutual absolution and reassurance could achieve.

But the process wasn't quite done. Bartlet quickened his pace as he reached the corridor leading to the private suite. Abbey. Leo might have offered an assurance that he had not lost the moral high ground in this war, but he could still remember the shock on his wife's face, the way her body had stiffened under his arm. He had frightened her. After all the terror of recent days and months, it had been he who had put that fear in her eyes. Fear for him? Or fear of someone she had thought she knew?

He needed to talk to her, to reassure her that the ruthless and vengeful stranger had been banished back to whatever depths from which he had emerged. To gain her own reassurance that she could forgive him for that lapse.

Striding up to the doors, Bartlet stretched his hand out towards the knob, and promptly snatched it back at the familiar stinging sensation. Not quite quickly enough however. The two agents posted on either side of the doorway remained impassive, although they could not help flicking their eyes to the side to regard their quietly swearing Chief Executive, who briefly nursed his bandaged hand before wrathfully ramming his briefcase under his arm and reaching again for the door with his now-free right hand.

"Twice in one day, what are the odds..." Bartlet's muttered monologue of frustration tapered out as he swung the door closed and unceremoniously dumped his briefcase on the floor. "Abbey! You here?"

"Right here, Jed and, oddly, in full possession of my hearing." The First Lady rose from one of the high-backed armchairs near the fireplace. "This is rather early for you, isn't it?"

"I need to talk to you." Her husband crossed to her, holding out his right hand to take hers. She took it, a wry expression on her face that he didn't stop to analyze. "Abbey, about the other night. I need you to know..."

"Good evening, Mr. President."

By a heroic effort of self-will, Bartlet managed to prevent himself from making an undignified leap ceiling-wards. However, his hand tightened on Abbey's, whose wry expression was segueing towards open amusement at his reaction. He turned slowly to face the tall man who had emerged from the depths of the second armchair behind him.

Well, damn. "Good evening, Admiral. I wasn't expecting you to be here."

"I know, sir. So I thought this might be the best place to wait."

Bartlet shot his physician a narrow glance, but the naval officer showed only the gravest and most respectful of demeanors to his Commander in Chief - and most recalcitrant patient. "Yeah, well about earlier. Something came up. Sorry and all that," he added in his most unapologetic tones.

"That's perfectly all right, Mr. President." Hackett was maddeningly unruffled. "The First Lady has been kind enough to suggest that I could take a look at your hand here instead, away from the distractions of the office."

Bartlet found himself defensively whipping the hand in question behind his back and out of reach. Flushing in annoyance at the instinctive gesture, he pulled it back out and said with all the authority he could summon, "Thank you, Admiral, but that won't be necessary. I'm perfectly good for today. Now if you'll excuse me..."

"Nonsense, Jed." Abbey effectively aborted his slide towards the door and freedom by tightening her grasp on his clasped hand. "You know very well that the dressings have to be changed every day." She nodded to her colleague, who turned to retrieve his medical satchel.

"C'mon, Abbey," Bartlet pleaded, a note that only the First Lady would have the lese majeste to call whining in his tone. "What's to check? You said it yourself yesterday. Healing well, no infection. Surely one day won't hurt?"

"Sit down, Jed." The words were spoken so firmly that he found himself on the sofa without ever consciously making the decision to sit down. Scowling, he reluctantly submitted his hand to the be-gloved Hackett's scrutiny. Seeing the naval medic raise an eyebrow at the two or three minute discolorations on the bandaging across his palm, the President cleared his throat uncomfortably. "I, ah, may have had a slight accident earlier today."

"So I see," Hackett replied with unperturbed ease, peeling away the dressings with a sure hand. "Second degree burns are notoriously susceptible to... accidents, sir."

Any rebuttal the President might have offered to that remark was quickly squashed flat by the ultimate authority in the room.

"And you didn't think it was worth mentioning?" His wife rolled her eyes in exasperation. "I swear to God, Jed. It's a good thing we can depend on Charlie to keep an eye on you."

"Charlie tattled on me?" Busted. He thought he had covered up the moment so well, too.

Abbey couldn't smother a grin. His tone of disappointed surprise made him sound about six, a child feeling the sting of betrayal by a playmate. "Sorry, babe," she said, half-sympathetically. "You should have listened when I told you I'd be keeping a very close eye on you."

"I thought you meant your eye," Bartlet muttered sulkily. "Not half the West Wing. Charlie's supposed to be my aide after all."

"Charlie is also a very intelligent young man, who knows precisely when it's necessary to rat on his pig-headed boss for his own good."

"Yeah." There really wasn't much else to say to that.

Bartlet sat there glumly, absently watching Hackett tend his battered palm, and mentally wishing the man gone already. He darted a sidelong look at his wife, feeling the need to talk to her beating at the barrier of his self-control. At the same time, a sort of sick dread rose at the prospect of having this conversation with her, of asking her to walk with him into his darkest places, to peer into the shadowed corners that not even he himself had ever thought could exist in the recesses of his soul. The all too momentary recovery of faith in himself was already beginning to fade, away from the reassuring presence of Leo McGarry.

Leo's unswerving faith in him, always treasured, never less than a burden, had never weighed so heavily as it did now. Normally the man's assurance had the power of a benediction for his old friend, but Bartlet could not shake the niggling little inner voice that told him this time it was different. This time, try as he might, he couldn't seem to convince his friend of the fundamental wrongness of what he had done, wished - did it matter? For surely the intent mattered every bit as much as the deed.

And his intent had been... murderous; he could feel his very thoughts shying away from facing that truth. Leo might be convinced that his President and friend would never yield to temptation, but how could he himself be so sure? There in that moment, on the landing, it had been as if he had for an instant felt his entire being shift and swing off compass, and he was still struggling to regain his balance.

A part of him admitted that he was beginning to obsess over this, that this slow spiral down into ever-darker thoughts wasn't entirely healthy, but he could no more seem to arrest his fall than he could make peace with himself. Every time his own logic, or a friend, cast him a lifeline, some impulse within refused to allow him to make use of it.

His increasingly black thoughts must have been visible on his face, because he suddenly became aware of Abbey's hand gently stroking his back, smoothing over the tense muscles beneath his jacket.

"Honey? Still with us?" she asked softly, concerned.

"Yeah." Bartlet seemed a hundred miles away. "They won't let me go to the funeral, you know," he said suddenly.

Hackett glanced up at Abbey, but didn't comment. The First Lady's features were creased in concern.

"You mean Lewis Paulson's funeral?"

"Yeah. Carlyle was by to see me yesterday, before the speech. Given that the poor devil's family has had to wait a whole week to bury him, I was hoping I could be there. But Dale says that security would be too difficult." The President's features tightened bitterly. "The unspoken implication being that my presence would turn an occasion of mourning into an undignified media circus. I really can't do that to his family. I've already taken enough from them, I can't rob them of their chance to say goodbye as well."

"Jed..." Abbey trailed off, the automatic assurance dying in her throat in acknowledgement of the truth of her husband's words. She stifled a sigh. A tiny, guilty part of her was almost relieved by the news. She understood Jed's need to pay his respects, but she dreaded its effect on him. He usually felt compelled to go if it were at all possible, to offer that last gesture to the men and women who had given their lives for their country, or its leader, and try to convey to their families by his presence that their loss had not gone un-remarked or un-noticed. But these occasions left him unsettled far more often than they brought a sense of peace or closure. Given how agitated his manner had been since his loss of control last weekend, she was eager to have him avoid anything that might upset him further.

Hackett, feeling the tension in the hand he was tending, would have agreed. Carefully blotting away the tiny blood droplets, he frowned slightly at the new damage his troublesome patient had managed to inflict upon himself.

"Two stitches torn out," he reported to his fellow medic, who leaned in over her husband's shoulder to see for herself. "Also, there's some weeping where the new tissue has been disturbed, which, I'm betting, has irritated the burns again." From the faint color rising in the President's cheeks, he was pretty sure he had bet correctly, but the man remained stubbornly silent.

Hackett sighed - noting that the President seemed to be having that effect on everyone who came in contact with him recently - and squeezed more salve onto the burns, spreading the ointment gently with his gloved fingertips.

"I won't re-stitch the tear," he assured his Commander in Chief, seeing the man's tensed shoulders slump slightly in relief. "There's hardly any bleeding, and I'd as soon refrain from traumatizing tissue that's trying to heal. The scar may be slightly more pronounced, but I don't think that will bother you?" Bartlet shook his head in affirmation, but Hackett saw pain flash in the eyes of Abbey Bartlet. The First Lady could probably have done without having yet one more legacy of the bloody campaign of recent months to mar her husband's body, and provide her with a painful reminder. "I'll just bandage it up."

"You're not going to swathe it up again, are you?" Bartlet asked in tones of faint dread. He really didn't want a return to the heavier wrappings that had rendered his hand all but useless in the days following the injury.

"Not so heavily, no sir. But I'm going to add another layer of bandaging to constrain the muscles and prevent them from stretching and further tearing open the wound. And I'm afraid that we'll have to continue with inspections for a while longer, until the new skin over the burns has a chance to reform. Morning and evening. I mean it, sir," Hackett spoke firmly.

Bartlet nodded again, but his attention had drifted back to Abbey. Hackett observed from the corner of his eye as he swiftly applied the fresh dressings, noting the man's puckered brow and distant, faintly troubled expression as he contemplated his wife. She was leaning forward, chin in hand, watching the care the medical officer was lavishing on her husband's hand.

Finished at last, the Admiral carefully laid down his patient's hand and rose to his feet. Closing his medical bag, he paused briefly by the President, and gently laid his hand on the man's shoulder.

Bartlet's head rose in surprise. He met his medic's gaze, and suddenly a genuine smile flashed across those somber features, touched by the other man's gesture and all that it implied. Hackett smiled back, and gave his Commander in Chief's shoulder a quick comforting pat. He sketched a half-bow to Abbey, who nodded her gratitude, and quietly took his leave.

In his wake, silence reigned. After wanting so desperately to have his wife alone, Bartlet found himself suddenly tongue-tied, at a loss to verbalize the confusion he felt.

For her part, Abbey eyed her husband speculatively. For one of the few times in their marriage, she found herself unable to read him. His general mood was relatively easy to detect; it seemed to start somewhere around dejection with a tendency to slide downwards, but for the life of her she couldn't understand why. Since this whole affair had started, she had seen Jed seemingly run through the entire spectrum of negative emotion, from sorrow to cold rage. None of these emotions were normally characteristic of him, but she was at a loss when it came to even putting a name to the mood that had claimed him this past week. At first she had put it down to the usual guilt and chagrin, writ large, that he always experienced when he felt he had given in to that fiery temper of his, but this was deeper.

Leo McGarry had recently offered his own opinion on what was bothering the man they both had spent more than half a lifetime studying, and Abbey had agreed with him. But now she was starting to wonder if that was only part of the story. She knew that her witnessing of it had only strengthened Jed's guilt over his loss of control. His protective instinct was a fearsome thing when roused, always had been even when its remit had only included his family and friends. Nowadays, with his perception of duty extending across an entire nation, it tended to flare more readily. Normally, it was Leo who bore the brunt, and Leo with his usual calm good sense who talked her husband back down from declarations that he regretted almost as soon as he had given them voice.

Leo had seemed pretty confident of being able to do just that again, and Abbey had been certain of her own ability to finish the work, but now a hint of doubt tickled her mind. She was used to the signs of frustration, anger and remorse that plagued her husband until he managed to recover his perspective, but something was different this time. For a start, those moods rarely lasted like this. Jed had enough trust in himself, and more than enough confidence, not to agonize over such outbursts for long. Abbey wasn't conceited enough to suppose either that she alone could be the cause of throwing her husband into such a funk.

No, whatever this was, it had been born in that moment of destruction, rage and loss, but something more was fuelling it now. This time there was another emotion thrown into the mix, one that as yet she could not quite identify.

The silence dragged on, becoming heavy.

"So." Abbey figured that she might as well start the conversational ball rolling, since her companion seemed uncharacteristically disinclined to do so. "You wanted to talk to me?"

"I... yeah." Bartlet seemed suddenly unable to meet her direct gaze, his eyes and fingers instead idly tracing over the fresh wrappings on his left hand. He lapsed back into silence, and Abbey was content to let him, comfortable in the knowledge that it wouldn't last.

Finally, he looked up at her, and she was almost shocked to see the apprehension dwelling in his eyes.

"It's about what happened on Sunday."

"I thought it might be," she said gently.

"I'm sorry." He chose to take that mild remark as a rebuke. "I know I should have said this sooner. I've never been very good at apologizing, have I?"

Now they were starting to get to the problem. "You feel the need to apologize for being shot at, Jed?"

"You know what I mean," he said seriously. "Abbey, I know I frightened you."

"Now, let's just get something straight right here, Jed." Abbey spoke briskly, fire starting to flash within her eyes. "I was frightened for you, not by you. Honey, you have in your time exasperated, annoyed and infuriated me. God knows you've scared me often enough, and I'm still scared for you - hell, I'm absolutely terrified for you - but I've never been frightened of you. Never."

"Maybe you should be." Bartlet's features had softened and crumpled slightly, but remained shaded.

"I don't think that's possible." Abbey paused for a moment, weighing her words. "This is about that outburst of yours, isn't it? Jed, have you been worrying about that? Because if ever a man had been goaded."

"That's just it, Abbey! It wasn't just an outburst! I've had outbursts!" Hell, he was having one right now. Bartlet's voice rose in frustration, struggling to find the words. "This wasn't. this wasn't - this was wrong!"

"Jed."

"No, Abbey. Listen, please." Desperate to make her understand, Bartlet was suddenly kneeling in front of her, clasping her hands between his as best he could. "This isn't about just being in a rage or venting, although the words I said were bad enough. This is about what I was thinking. My God, Abbey. I never believed I could feel such terrible things, for anyone."

Stunned by the force of emotion pouring out at her, Abbey stared into his upturned face, seeing the anguish, the guilt and... there. That new sensation that she had been unable to identify, lay bare on his features.

Self-disgust.

At that realization, a hand rose to her mouth in mingled grief and shock. Unable to bear the idea of the man she loved judging himself like this, she reached out with all the protective fury of that love to drive the doubt from his mind.

"Why do you feel that what you felt, what you said, in that moment was so unforgivable? Honey," she caught his hand as he started to draw back, "I know how you feel about being responsible for ending a life. I know because I've seen you after every crisis, every military incursion. Because I phoned you at six-thirty in the morning when you returned from receiving the bodies of those young soldiers at Dover, and I heard it in your voice, and damned you for not asking me to stay with you. I know you've borne their loss, and accepted the responsibility for their deaths. But you've always been able to find some balance before. Why not now? And for God's sake, why over that man?"

Abbey felt herself almost spit the words, a rage rising within her that was every bit as powerful as the force she had been so shocked to see welling within her husband as he lay slumped against the bullet-torn wall outside the battlefield that had been his study, his sanctuary.

His home.

And he wasn't listening.

"Abbey, didn't you hear what I said? 'By any means necessary.' I said those words, and I meant them. I practically ordered Ron to kill him! Dear God, Abbey. Your whole career has been devoted to saving life, not taking it. I claim to be a man of faith, yet I found myself able to discard it in an instant, to serve a desire for revenge."

"The Church allows you to defend yourself, Jed! To preserve your own life-"

"No!" He pulled away from her abruptly. "That's just it! To defend yourself, yes, but not pre-emptive! And certainly not like this. This had nothing to do with self-preservation, and everything to do with wanting blood for blood."

There. It was said. Bartlet turned his face away, hoping it was enough.

"Jed." Abbey took his chin in her hand, turning his face back to her. She tried to bring him back, make him see and understand, but it was only half-hearted on his part. He needed to say this, to have her hear.

So Abigail Bartlet listened.

"All my life, Abbey, I've held to my belief in the sanctity of human existence. I was raised to it; for me its truth was as unquestionable as breathing, and as natural. To take life, it was a mortal sin." Perhaps not even his wife, raised in the same tradition and also professionally sworn to the preservation of life, could fully understand the sheer weight of fundamental, Catholic, conviction behind that tenet. "It destroyed not only the victim, but the taker as well." Bartlet's mouth twisted bitterly. "I was damned lucky all my life thus far. I never had to face up to the possibility of ending a life, not like Leo had to. I flattered myself that I never would, that I couldn't. I was better than that."

He rose and began to pace restlessly. "Then I took this job. I don't know if it was hubris, or stupidity. Did I think I would be the first leader in history who would never give the order to destroy? Or not give the order to save? I don't know." He threw his arms out in angry frustration at his inability to fit the emotions bubbling inside into mere words. "I suppose I rationalized it, convinced myself that there was no way I could ever give such an order unless it really was for the best - but is it ever for the best? I just don't know any more. All I know is that ever since I took this office, I seem to have done nothing but kill and kill and kill..."

Mindless of Hackett's latest efforts, his fist crashed down into his bandaged palm in distressed and angry emphasis.

Abbey rose and closed her hands around his, pressing softly until he slowly lifted his head to meet her scrutiny. She smiled crookedly at him, her eyes shining with distress for his anguish. Dropping her gaze, she gently lifted his clenched right hand from the palm it had just abused, and ran her thumb over it repeatedly until she felt the tension begin to dissipate and the fingers uncurl. Slipping her own hand into his, she drew her husband to sit beside her on the sofa. With a low sigh, he came to her, drawing her into the crook of his arm and resting his cheek against her hair. Resting back against his chest, she drew his bandaged hand into her lap and cradled it gently.

"Jed," the First Lady's voice was soft as she ran her fingers delicately over the wrapping protecting his palm. "Sweetheart, what is it you feel right now? Really? Tell me."

Tell me. His breath soughed out gently, a soft, almost keening sound against her hair. He was silent for a moment, and when he spoke the sense of loss in his voice broke her heart.

"Like I've lost something so important to me, or worse, maybe discovered that I never really had it at all." He tightened his arm around her, seeking a thread of reassurance. "Abbey, what I felt, what I wanted in that moment - it was as if I found a blackness within myself I'd never have thought possible. I wanted to kill him; I'm terrified that if he had been standing before me in that instance that I would have killed him. And I can't forget that. I feel." he dragged the words out, slowly, unwillingly. "I feel as if I've somehow damned myself."

"Do you think Leo's damned, too?" So that was the true heart of the problem. She should have known. Abbey would have been half-tempted to laugh at her husband's dumbfounded expression if she hadn't felt so close to tears.

"No!" His denial was as certain as it was instantaneous, and held more than a touch of outrage at the very idea.

"Why not? Honey..." she met Jed's gaze steadily, "...Leo's killed, too, in the name of county and patriotism. What makes him different from you? Why should he not be condemned as well?"

"Because Leo..." This man, considered to be a world class intellect, struggled to express beliefs he had buried so deep that they were instinct rather than thought. "Leo... Leo is good," he finished, and Abbey, hearing the almost innocent simplicity of that reply, and seeing his faith in its veracity shining in his eyes, bit down on her lip against the up rush of emotion that swelled within her.

"Leo was fighting a war, but so are you," she whispered, her voice no less convinced despite the softness of its tone.

"No, it's not even that." He struggled for words. "Fighting a war doesn't excuse, not automatically. Leo never wanted the death of another human being. He knew his actions might cost lives; that was the way things were. But he could always hold onto the fact that he never truly desired the death - the destruction - of another human being."

Bartlet took a deep, ragged breath

"For a long time, I held onto that thought, too. Through all the death and destruction, the blood on my hands, I could focus on that. I didn't expect to be forgiven, and I know that I will have to answer for it one day, but that's only right. I knew the judgment would come but, through it all, no matter how far I seemed to drift, I could hold onto this one thought, this one lifeline - I never wanted their deaths. I never truly wished destruction on another human being, not for any reason. until last week. And now I feel as if the last thing that kept me from losing my way is gone, and I'm drifting."

They sat together in silence for a few moments, the weight of his desolation heavy in the air between them.

"God is full of love and compassion, slow to anger and rich in mercy." Abbey felt her husband's startled gaze upon her as she murmured the words of the psalm. She met his eyes steadily. "I remember your saying those words times without number over the years. It was a prayer and a creed with you."

"Yes." He smiled at her slowly. "I always loved what it told me about my God, my faith. A God of love, not vengeance. Everything I needed in order to be able to trust, to believe, contained in that one sentence."

Abbey's face was soft with affection as she regarded him. "I like what it tells me about you," she whispered. "What it tells me about what is important to you. When the girls were little and first asked you who God was, you didn't talk to them about omnipotence or infallibility or judgment or immortality. You just told them God was the person besides you and me that they could rely on to love them and forgive them, no matter what. No matter what, Jed," she repeated more strongly. "If you can believe in His forgiveness, why can you not believe that you should be entitled to accept it?"

He smiled at her, but it was a shaky, tremulous smile, lacking real conviction. Still, he came into her arms as she held them open to him, squeezing her in gentle gratitude. Her forgiveness he accepted gratefully, but he could not yet allow himself to believe that his actions permitted him the right to the unquestioning belief and trust that she so readily bestowed.

Leo's earlier reassurances had offered comfort, but they were merely a papering over of the emotional cracks that not even Abbey's absolution could completely fill. Bartlet knew that while their trust in him was a balm, he would have to find his own way to crush the poisonous little trickle of self-disgust that dripped inside, marring the brightness of that core of self he had always leaned on so confidently. He was aware of the sense of guilt, and the need to atone that kept him morbidly worrying at and reopening those cracks as fast as his wife and his friend tried to bandage them, but he couldn't help it.

What he had done, all that had happened because of him, his conscience insisted required penance of some kind. If a constant tearing at the wounds within, a reliving of the taste of self-doubt and abhorrence was the only way he could make expiation, then he would be unable to stop himself doing so, until finally the wounds ceased to hurt so much and he could feel some measure had been repaid.

In the meantime, knowing that he only had to contend with his own judgment, not that of the people whose opinion mattered so much to him, caused his spirit to lighten somewhat. However dark the journey got, at least now he knew that he would have his anchor, his safe port during the emotional storms ahead. A niggling little voice darted out to suggest that he had no right to such comfort just yet, but he crushed it down. Still, a faint echo lingered and he regretfully started to pull back, bestowing a final, gentle kiss on his wife's lips.

Abbey's eyes opened and regarded the face watching her so intently from mere inches away. Jed's inner confusion still clouded those blue eyes, the lingering guilt deepening the lines on his features. She sighed to herself. 'Oh, Jed. I don't know why you feared my judgment. It could never be worse than your condemnation of yourself. Everyone else understands, why can't you?'

Frustration welled at her realization that her declaration of faith had soothed but not reassured him. In this case one of Jed's greatest strengths, his ability to rely on his own judgment, was also his weakness. He couldn't embrace their reassurances; not until he had fought his own way to acceptance, until he had forgiven himself. And there was little she could say or do to hurry that process.

Swallowing her own anguish and frustration at his pain, Abbey decided that at least she could cushion the path for him as far as possible. If declarations of faith and trust alone were not enough, maybe another kind of declaration might help.

Reaching out, she cupped her husband's face in her hands and gently drew his mouth back down onto hers. He came willingly and kissed her softly, before starting to withdraw again. Knowing him well enough to have a sense of what tangled thoughts were running through his head, Abbey resolved that no misplaced self-flagellation was going to take place while she was around.

Slipping a hand behind Jed's head, loving the feel of the still thick, soft hair between her fingers, she firmly pressed his mouth back down onto hers, sensing his surprise as she deepened the kiss. Her other hand slid around his waist, feeling the tense muscles of his back begin to relax slightly at last.

Loosening her grasp slightly, she breathed, "Jed? Leo told me he was clearing your schedule for the rest of the evening. He felt you needed some time to yourself. Would you mind spending some time with me?"

She felt Jed smile against her mouth and, as his hands brushed gently up her arms to wrap around her shoulders, she felt a flicker of joy at the thought that the darkness had been beaten back for the moment.

But just for the moment.

Moscow, Russia: (Time Zone Shift) Thursday Night

From a dirty, ink dark alcove that not even the light of day ever illuminated, he watched with savage delight as the two men - one American and the other Russian - cornered one more informant and hit yet another wall in their fruitless search. They would find out nothing. Nobody who knew him would dare. They knew the consequences. Chuckling softly, safe in the cocoon of his superiority, he basked in the knowledge of his power. Power over them, their leaders, and through them, the world.

It was an interesting thought. Certainly, while he was the goal and always had been, there were... benefits undreamed of in the course that his stalker had forced from destiny. Even faceless Fate could not stand up to his power, his supreme skill and purpose.

He'd been following them all day, unafraid of discovery, playing his games and hovering as close as he dared. There was always the chance the two hunters would find something, someone willing to risk his vengeance and tell all. But he doubted it. The fate of those who betrayed him was legend on the streets. The risk was minimal, and only added to the heady rush of the game.

And risk was always part of the game.

They would learn nothing that he did not want them to know. Their frustration only proved his superiority. The best both their countries had to offer, and he played them for the fools he knew they were. It wasn't arrogance, just simple fact.

Let them hunt. Their prey had other plans. His hand slipped into his pocket, feeling the envelope he'd been carrying all day. The address had been ridiculously easy to acquire. A confident smile pulled at the corners of his mouth as he gloried in the promise the words within contained. A simple text fax that would leave no trail for them to find, and then delivery. He still had pieces to play they knew nothing of. They would learn soon enough. The world would learn.

He would learn.

The watcher turned away, leaving the hunters to their empty efforts. There was nothing to fear from them, or from him.

Oh, yes. The prey did indeed have plans of its own. This canvas, this work of art, was far from finished.

The White House, Secret Service Interview Room: (Time Zone Shift) Saturday, 7:13 AM

Click... click... click...

Dale Carlyle drew in a deep breath that just stopped short of a sigh - 'Why was it everyone seemed to be doing that of late around here?' he couldn't help but wonder - and turned over a new page of the report he was reading. For a few seconds, he read in blessed silence.

Click... click...

"Sorry." Donnatella Moss caught her companion's exasperated glance and flushed, putting the pen she had been fidgeting with down on the desk table and folding her arms. It didn't seem to help, so she put her hands on her knees to still their fidgety jumping. That didn't help either. Back to folded arms.

Still didn't help. She sighed heavily, mourning the lost battle.

One eyebrow quirked and Carlyle finally gave in to a deep sigh of his own. Yep. Everybody was doing that around here. "Go figure," he muttered, glancing away from the report in his hand to the obviously uncomfortable West Wing staffer doing her level best not to melt or fidget her way through her chair into the floor. Sitting there with shoulders hunched and head slightly bowed, she caught his gaze and returned it somewhat defensively. Carlyle's expression softened slightly as he regarded her.

"Nervous?" he asked her gently, in a very real sense reminding her that she wasn't the one about to be skewered here.

"I think I'm going to be sick." Anxiety or apprehension always tended to lend an even deeper frankness to Donna's conversational style.

"You won't be."

"I wish I could believe that." Josh Lyman's assistant regarded her somewhat sterile surroundings miserably. The fixtures of the Secret Service interview room could kindly be described as functional, forbidding even. "I'm not even sure why I'm here."

"Because you came to us."

"In that case, shouldn't Margaret be here too? I mean, she's senior to me."

"Nah." Carlyle shook his head reassuringly.

"Why not?"

"Because Margaret would be sick." Carlyle looked up and grinned. "Lovely lady, but not my first choice to play good cop to my bad cop."

Donna couldn't suppress a rueful smile of acknowledgment. Margaret had many excellent qualities, but her nervous, quirky manner was not exactly conducive to the projection of an air of open, relaxing friendliness. Still, Leo McGarry's assistant was as devoted to her boss as anyone could wish, and as good in her own way at handling the Chief of Staff as Donna was in handling Josh Lyman. If most of Donna's work arose from the need to exactly organize every second of Josh's day, in order to keep the Deputy Chief of Staff from reducing his own schedule to a hopeless muddle, Margaret's work suffered the complication of a boss who was rather too inclined to make his own arrangements. A fact that tended to drive his obsessively precise assistant crazy.

Speaking of driving a person crazy. "Agent Carlyle?"

"Dale."

"Dale." Donna flashed the agent one of her wide, bright smiles. "Seriously, why am I here? Isn't this something that should be undertaken by you and your colleagues?"

"It is, and we are undertaking it. But we're working on a deadline here, Donna, as I'm sure you can imagine. I wanted an extra edge, and I think you may be it."

"Are you sure it's him?" Donna's face was creased with anxiety. "I mean, if we - the assistants, I mean - were wrong... it's a terrible thing to accuse anyone of."

"We're sure." Carlyle briskly gathered together the loose pages of the report. "We've checked movements, phone records, recent associations. We were very thorough. We'd started inquiring into him even before you came to us. We know it was him. And so do you," he added. "You'd never have come to us otherwise."

"We didn't want to." Donna still looked troubled. "But all the scuttlebutt, the gossip... everyone knew there had to have been someone on the inside, to get inside the Oval Office like that. And he changed after that. Everyone noticed." She looked up miserably. "No one wanted to believe it at first, not one of our own. But we didn't feel we had the luxury of keeping silent. Not when it involved the President."

"Nor does Thompson," Carlyle said grimly. "We need him to talk, and fast. We need any information he may have. He's already close to the edge, from what you've said. You know him, Donna. I'm hoping he may be prepared to talk to you, if not to me."

"It's just so hard to believe," Donna sighed, wondering briefly why everybody around here seemed to be doing that of late. "I don't know him very well, but something like this... I mean, Greg could be a bit of an ass at times, but I can't understand how he could have gotten involved in anything like this. I'd have described him as a little weak, if I were asked, but not malicious."

"Who says that malice was required? All that Volkov might have needed was weakness, as long as he could play on it."

"Volkov." Donna sounded the name out curiously, feeling her mouth give shape and sound to the shadow that had dogged them all for so long now. "From what I read in Ron's report, he doesn't seem like a very nice man." Too late she realized that she wasn't supposed to have known about that report, let alone read it.

Carlyle almost laughed aloud. The poor woman had given over the fidgeting completely to guiltily melting her way through her chair. Given what he already knew about the relationship between Josh Lyman and his assistant, the conclusion that she'd read the report was an easy one. Even when. "The morning of the press conference?"

Donna nodded her head a fraction.

"Uh huh," Carlyle shuffled the pages in his hand, smothering a grin. "You were with Josh?"

Down went Donna's head again, the meekest gesture of affirmation she could manage.

"He wasn't happy, I take it?"

Something in his tone of voice bolstered her courage. "Josh was... rabid." Perhaps she wasn't in trouble after all. Her hopes of not spending the rest of her life in a federal lock-up rose considerably. "I suggested we bury it in the Rose Garden."

This time Carlyle did grin. "Donna," he regarded her affectionately, "you are an extraordinary woman."

"I am?" It didn't help that she squeaked the question.

"We trust you."

"You do?"

"Most of the time." No sense in letting her get too carried away.

Donna blushed at the compliment. Considering the many faux paux she'd managed over the last few years, it was a wonder she was even allowed into the building, in her opinion at any rate. Apparently not one the Secret Service shared. Her blush deepened at the thought. Then she turned worried eyes on Carlyle, asking the question she'd been holding in for so long. "Are you going to catch him? Will the President be safe from him now?"

In the end, that was the only thing that mattered.

The amusement faded from Carlyle's features, and he regarded her silently.

Donna dropped her gaze first. "I see." The whisper was despondent, and the two of them simply sat there for a moment.

Eventually, Donna broke the silence. "Does Greg know why he's being brought here?"

"He knows," Carlyle said wryly. "He hasn't been formally charged yet, but he knows. Just as his whole department knows."

"They feel he's betrayed them," Donna said softly. "All of us in this building, we all work together, in one way or another. Maybe those of us who came in with the new administration feel more strongly invested than those who simply work here. But we're all proud of where we work, and what we do. The bottom line is that we all work to support each other, and to support him. That... you just don't betray that."

"No. No, you don't." The uncomfortable silence was threatening to fall again, and Carlyle made a conscious effort to head it off. "So, the assistants twigged Thompson by themselves? That's quite a network you people have going there."

Donna smiled. "Josh lives in terror of it. Seriously, though, the White House is like any other office environment; word gets around. The senior assistants don't encourage it, but if we can sometimes use it to help our bosses, we will. Or possibly torment them," she added mischievously, a somewhat evil glint appearing in her eyes.

Carlyle blinked at that, making a mental note to never get the White House senior assistants really mad at him. Mildly put out would do, thank you very much. "Well, Josh may live in terror of it, but at least he has the sense to know when to use it." He tapped the report. "We were really glad when Josh sent you and Margaret to us. We were certain we were on the right track, but you guys may have given us the extra lever we need. Say," he added curiously, "how come you and Margaret took this to Josh, not Leo?"

"We talked about it. After all, Leo is Margaret's boss." Donna grimaced. "But we decided that Josh would be better. We were still half-afraid of being wrong, and we didn't want to start any fires. We felt this was one matter that Josh might actually handle more calmly and quietly than Leo could." She paused to consider this. "Wow, I never thought the day would come when I'd find myself picking Josh over Leo while seeking a cool, collected response."

Carlyle laughed. "I guess Josh usually keeps you on your toes?"

She grinned. "You have no idea what it's like to have a boss you almost need to keep on a leash."

Carlyle almost winced at that. It would appear that more than one White House boss needed a leash. At least Donna's was still within shouting distance. Or was that strangling distance? "Yeah, you'd think that, wouldn't you?"

He was saved from having to explain that comment by the door of the interview room opening to admit two distinctly unfriendly-looking specimens of the United States Secret Service. Escorted between them, expression a mixture of terror and defiance, was a thin, dark-haired man in his mid-twenties.

"Sit down, Mr. Thompson." Carlyle nodded to his colleagues, who quietly withdrew.

Thompson slid into the unoccupied seat across the table, eyeing Carlyle apprehensively. His eyes slid across to Donna, and his expression shifted towards open surprise.

Donna smiled awkwardly. "Hello, Greg."

Carlyle clicked on the recording machine. "Interview commencing at 7:18 AM, Special Agent Dale Carlyle conducting. Also present, assistant to the White House Deputy Chief of Staff, Donnatella Moss." He regarded the young man across from him, noting the jittery movements of the hands, the flash of bravado in the eyes, the hair that, despite the evident agitation, was carefully combed and gelled, and the clothes that were just a little too expensive for the job he held. "You are Gregory Thompson?"

"Yes."

"You are employed in the mail room of the White House? Specifically, part of your job description is to distribute incoming mail to the appropriate offices in the White House, particularly in the West Wing?"

"Yeah. But I don't deliver mail to the Oval Office." Thompson's jaw thrust out truculently. "Nothing gets sent in there unexamined. Everyone knows that."

"And yet something did, just over a week ago." Carlyle leaned back and studied him thoughtfully. Good cop, bad cop, time to get to the point. "You know what this is about, don't you?"

"I know. And you can't pin anything on me." Thompson remained belligerent, though he had begun to sweat. "I don't deliver to the Oval Office."

"But you do deliver to reception, right outside the Oval Office." Carlyle's tone hardened. "And your first delivery is nice and early, first mail of the day. Delivered before Charlie Young or anyone else is in reception yet, and the Oval Office is often unoccupied, too. So," he leaned forward, pinning the man to his seat with a steel hard gaze, "there you are, alone in reception, the few people that are in the hallways at that hour paying you no mind because they see you at the same time every single day. Nothing but one door between you and the Oval Office, and the President's desk just a few steps inside. It would be just the work of a moment to slip inside and place something on the desk. Then back out and on with your round, and no one the wiser."

"No!" Thompson's response was explosive. "You're making it up. You haven't got a damn thing, nothing. That's all you've got? That I deliver the mail to the next room? Why not accuse Charlie Young? Or Leo McGarry? Or one of your own guys. Yeah, one of your own. There are no cameras in the Oval Office, everybody knows that. The truth is, you screwed up and now you're looking for a fall guy. Well, it won't be me. I'm not taking the fall just because you dropped the ball and high-and-mighty Bartlet got himself..."

"Greg!" Donna's soft, shocked exclamation caused Thompson to break and falter, realizing too late he'd gone too far.

Carlyle eyed him coldly for a minute, then flipped open his folder and removed a photograph. "Do you recognize this man, Mr. Thompson?" He slid it across the table.

Thompson looked down at it and stiffened. "No," he said eventually.

Donna craned forward and caught an upside down glimpse of a youngish man in Russian military uniform, with close-cropped dark hair, severely handsome features and - she couldn't repress a shiver - the coldest eyes she had ever seen.

"Are you sure, sir? Look again," Carlyle invited gently.

"I'm sure!"

Carlyle silently slid another photograph across the table.

Thompson glanced at it - and suddenly slumped back in his chair, burying his face in his hands.

"Now, Mr. Thompson." The agent's voice was cold as winter. "Perhaps you'd like to reconsider your answer? Do you know this man?"

The White House Residence: Saturday, 7:13 AM

Still drifting on the tides of sleep, Abbey blinked at the glowing face of the clock sitting on the bed stand. She watched as one digital number clicked over to another, not quite comprehending the significance of the odd numeric order. Was that actually a seven? Followed by what? A thirteen? Another number appeared. Then the surprised realization hit her and she came fully awake, finally appreciating the remarkable significance.

It was now seven fourteen in the morning, she was in the White House - which was odd enough, she supposed - but there was something else very odd going on here. There was a presence next to her. Gently rolling over, careful not to disturb the other occupant of the bed, Abbey regarded her husband's still slumbering form with no little surprise.

It was seven fourteen... no, now seven fifteen in the AM and Jed was still in bed, still deeply asleep, and not in the Oval trying to fix the world. His slow, even breathing told her he wasn't anywhere near the threshold of waking.

She looked at the clock again. The alarm hadn't gone off either. Amazing...

Will wonders never cease? A grateful smile lit her face. She knew who was responsible for this minor miracle, and it wasn't her stubborn, workaholic husband.

'Bless you Charlie. Bless you Leo.' The thought came easily. And bless the grim cohort of Secret Service Agents standing right outside the bedroom door, weapons probably drawn and at the ready, holding off whoever or whatever might dare to disturb their charges.

Would anyone in his or her right mind try to break through that formidable barricade? Abbey didn't think so. Not unless they were seriously suicidal.

She delighted in this rare chance to watch him sleep, the lines of care and worry erased by the oblivion of true rest. The last few years had seen so little of that. He was always up and away, apologizing if he woke her or brushing a quick kiss of good-bye across her lips if he did. Either way, she'd been left alone, never more the one to wake up first. She missed that, watching him wake to the morning and return to her.

Perhaps aware of the audience, or slowly waking to the realization that a morning routine had been broken, her husband stirred. Tossing restlessly beneath the covers, he threw out his bandaged left hand. It landed with a muffled sound on his wife's side.

Abbey tensed, waiting for the cry of disturbed pain. She relaxed when it never came. Another miracle, perhaps a good omen for the day. Gently, she moved the hand and laid it across his side and hip, resting her fingers lightly on the bandages.

She loved to watch him sleep, never more amazed at the difference it brought to his features. The little boy always emerged when his defenses were down. The sharp angles and harsh lines of tension erased by the soft, vulnerable innocence of the youth he'd once been, would always be in spirit if not in body. Now, at this moment, there were no shadows hiding that boy from her view.

Her husband muttered something sleepily, eyelids flickering as he rolled on to his back and tossed off the remaining covers.

Abbey smiled. He was close to waking, but not quite yet. How often in the last years had he been allowed to laze away a morning? Wake on his own, not by a call from his aide or the clamoring of an insistent alarm clock? How often had his subconscious allowed him to forget the burden? How often?

Hardly ever.

Abbey's smile broadened, a calculating light dancing in her eyes. There were... other ways to be awakened in the morning. Now was the time to try a few, see if he remembered. To see if she remembered.

Her hand moved across his skin, fingers playing with the hair on his chest. She felt the goose bumps rise on his skin, the crackle of static, and Abbey knew it wasn't simply the cooler air of the room as the cause. He didn't. Half asleep, Jed tried to brush the perceived irritation away, mumbling something incoherent, then slipped back into slumber.

This was more of a challenge than she'd originally thought, but Abbey wasn't about to give up so easily. She was beginning to remember the rules to this game. He was almost there...

Fingers trailing lightly down his chest, she paused at his stomach. With a single nail, Abbey traced the outlines of that soft indentation... and felt him shiver. More goose bumps. One leg moved restlessly, pulling the bedcovers lower. He muttered a protest, and she paused for a moment, watching him slowly abandon the last vestiges of oblivion.

Just as slowly, he blinked, opening his eyes. The bleary, early morning confusion was quickly replaced with that very passionate spark Abbey had been waiting for. He'd always been a quick study. His gentle, enticing smile only confirmed it, promising more.

"Hey," Abbey whispered, sliding closer and curving her body into his. "Good morning."

"It is? Morning?"

Shivering at the teasing rumble in his voice, Abbey snuggled closer. That they fit so well never ceased to amaze her. She felt him wrap his arm around her, hand and fingers dancing lightly along her side and stirring her senses as she had done his. In this, turnabout was fair play and she wasn't about to complain. There were worse ways to wake up in the morning.

Apparently Jed thought so as well. She relaxed contentedly as he, with a single, practiced movement, turned her in his arms, rolling both their bodies over. Taking her hands, encouraging them and her to explore, he looked down on her. The smile on his face promised so much more. Abbey was definitely not complaining.

Lowering his head, the kiss he gave her was surprisingly gentle, almost tentative.

Not exactly what Abbey had been looking for, not this time and after far too long. She almost desperately wanted more from him than that. This wasn't a g ame any longer.

Hand to the back of his head, she deepened that tentative kiss, abandoning the gentle beginnings and telling him in no uncertain terms where she wanted this to go. He didn't disappoint, nor did he waste any time. Abbey let him take care of the rest of the logistics. Sweatpants and her nightclothes went the way of the tossed aside covers.

Abbey couldn't help grinning. A new record.

Now he was really awake.

His hands skillfully guided her hips and a low moan escaped her. How long had it been? Too long, for both of them. Heat danced across her skin as desire that hadn't been truly fulfilled in weeks, months, crested and overrode everything else. His hands, his touch, the heat of his body down the length of hers.

Arching her back, Abbey pressed against him, harder, demanding more. Age, a lifetime of familiarity and something far deeper allowed their bodies to move as one, a harmony of the spiritual as well as the physical. The tempo was instinctive, increasing the hungry pace until, finally, it shattered and took both of them with it.

Spent, they collapsed into each other's arms.

Well, he collapsed.

On top of her.

Abbey had always hated this part.

She tapped him lightly on the shoulder. "Jed?"

All he did was grunt.

"You weigh a ton."

"I do not." His voice, though muffled by the pillow, was highly affronted.

Abbey rolled her eyes and laughed. Men and their egos. "Wanna bet?"

"I'd lose, wouldn't I?" His laugh as he rolled over, allowing her to slide out from beneath him, was colored with satisfied exhaustion. "Abbey?"

"Hmmm?" Abbey responded, savoring the deep feeling of contentment he had left her with.

"Growing old sucks."

Now that had been unexpected. What brought that on? "Speak for yourself, buster."

Her husband had the audacity to grin, though it was tinged with a sadness she found troubling.

"Still holding steady at twenty-nine, are you?" he asked teasingly.

"You bet your ass."

"If those are the stakes..." Turning his face to hers, Bartlet absently picked up a lock of her hair, playing it through his fingers and savoring its silky texture. "Seriously, there was a time..." He didn't finish, he didn't have to.

Abbey stifled a knowing grin. It wouldn't have done his precious ego any good. Even after that remarkable performance. "Feeling mortal, are we?"

Head falling dejectedly back on to the pillow; he closed his eyes and muttered, "Depressingly so."

"Poor baby."

"You're not helping."

"I live to torment you."

He neither laughed at that nor gave one of his teasing grunts. The huff he gave off sounded suspiciously to Abbey's ears like the beginnings of a snore. Lifting her head, she looked at him closer, confirming her suspicions and his regret. There had been a time... Still, performing the ultimate male cliché - and one she knew he would protest vehemently given half a chance, especially considering what they'd just accomplished - Jed was about to fall back asleep.

Abbey shook her head fondly. Men! She poked him with her finger. "Jed?"

He grunted... again. He wanted to sleep.

Unfortunately, she couldn't let him. Reality called. "Wake up."

"Why?"

That had been clear enough. Abbey prodded him again. "You have a job."

"I do?"

"Yep."

"Doing what?"

Abbey laughed with delight. The little boy hadn't quite abandoned his hold on the most powerful man in the free world. There had been a definite plaintive quality to that last question. "Running the country," she answered, wickedly whipping off the last of the rumpled bed covers.

Her husband yelped as the cooler air hit skin still shining from the sweat of their exertions. Grabbing his sweats, he sullenly growled the question, "What country?"

"This one." Abbey snuggled deeper under her covers. He may have to get up, but she didn't. Quite frankly, she was surprised the phone hadn't already started ringing.

Considering Jed's current state of disheveled undress, she was also grateful nobody had knocked at the door. Knowing him, in his present mood, he'd have no compunction about answering it. Watching him awkwardly struggle into his sweat bottoms, all things considered, she wouldn't have blamed him.

He was looking longingly at the bed. So much for growing old. From the passionate spark in his eye - which had never truly fled - she knew for certain it wasn't sleep he was thinking about, not this time. He'd found his second wind.

Abbey sighed, more than a little disappointed herself. "Office, Jed. I'm pretty sure you have a meeting this morning."

"Just one? Couldn't they have it without me?"

"Nope."

"Damn."

With that, he stalked off into the bathroom. A few moments later and Abbey heard the sound of running water in the shower. She made a silent bet with herself that it was going to be very, very cold. It was a bet she was sure of winning. Jed's protesting yelp soon after confirmed it. Her knowing smile deepened and she burst out laughing.

Hearing her, his bellowed, indignant response was hardly that of a gentleman.

Abbey didn't begrudge him that. He'd earned the right. Drawing the covers up to her chin, she relaxed back on to her pillow. She wasn't about to get up just yet. He may have had to run the country, or the world for that matter, but she didn't.

Still, it had definitely been one hell of a way to wake up to the morning.

Secret Service Interview Room: Saturday, 7:34 AM

Carlyle silently slid another photograph across the table.

Thompson glanced at it - and suddenly slumped back in his chair, burying his face in his hands.

"Now, Mr. Thompson." The agent's voice was cold as winter. "Perhaps you'd like to reconsider your answer? Do you know this man?"

"How did you get that?" Thompson's voice was muffled, his hands still raised to his face.

"CCTV camera from in front of your building."

Thompson finally lowed his hands to regard the other man in disbelief. "But that was almost three weeks ago!"

"Fortunately for us, the security firm keeps tapes for at least a month before wiping them."

"You mean, your people went through a month of security footage just in case..." Thompson was clearly struggling to wrap his mind around the amount of time and sheer, mind-numbing effort that task must have involved.

Carlyle gave a twisted smile. "The United States Secret Service is very thorough. Particularly when we're investigating an attack on the person of the President."

"Why me, though?" Perversely, Thompson seemed more than a little insulted that he should have been considered a viable subject for such in-depth scrutiny.

"We investigated everybody, Mr. Thompson, from the senior staff down. Anybody with access." Carlyle leaned forward, causing the other man to flinch back nervously. "I wasn't kidding before. You have no idea how seriously we take an attack of this nature. Now, the man in the photo?"

His lips thinned as the other man stayed stubbornly silent. Picking up the photograph, he slowly tapped its edge against the tabletop. "Mr. Thompson, is it possible that you don't realize the importance of what I'm asking you?"

"Oh, I think I have a fair idea," the younger man snapped back. "You want a nice, tidy little confession, so you can sweep this whole mess back under the carpet, and President Bartlet suffers as little public awkwardness as possible."

Carlyle found himself slightly taken aback by the bitterness of Thompson's words.

"Greg." Donna's soft voice broke in.

Both men unconsciously turned to face her, jarred out of their silent stand off.

Donna's eyes were wide and wounded, her expression dismayed and uncomprehending. Fixing the full power of that gaze on her colleague, she asked simply, "Why?"

Thompson stared at her for an instant, then his expression crumpled slightly. "I never meant for anything to happen." Suddenly he sounded very young.

Good cop, indeed. Carlyle breathed a silent sigh of relief. It was amazing what could slip through the most stubborn defenses. He sat quietly, anxious not to snap the tenuous link that had just been formed.

Donna Moss was a people person. Her nature was such that she forged connections with others quickly and easily. Even if she were not one of the most senior assistants in the White House, Carlyle was sure she would still have known the names of almost every employee, and probably the names of their children, significant others and pets as well. Donna was interested in everybody; genuinely interested.

Carlyle suspected that having that interest focused on him could be almost irresistible for a man like Thompson. He was brash and belligerent, but also in many ways still just a boy, eager to impress, anxious to be liked.

Donna hesitated nervously when Carlyle quietly slid the second photograph across the table towards her. But curiosity is a powerful force, and one that Donna possessed in more than abundant supply. Toby Ziegler had once called her 'Elephant's Child', in a fit of more than usually exasperated bemusement. Fortunately, despite a few nascent attempts on Josh Lyman's part, the name hadn't stuck. Personal assistants know all their boss's weaknesses, and Josh really, really hated being pinched.

Responding to her partner's unspoken cue, she picked up the photograph that had inspired such a strong reaction in Thompson and studied the slightly grainy, black and white image. Two men, standing just inside the building entrance, clearly in the act of saying farewell. The younger, Thompson, visible in profile, features animated, hands frozen in the act of gesturing enthusiastically as he spoke to his companion. The other man, somewhat older, was listening calmly.

Despite expecting to see that face, Donna's eyes turned to scrutinize the sharper image of the official photograph. Noting the clean, angular lines of the face, the impassive blue eyes, she could not help thinking that it was a handsome face despite its coldness; a warmer emotion might have rendered it almost beautiful.

Unbidden, the quote suddenly ran through her mind, 'the children of Lucifer are often beautiful'.

Blushing slightly at this fresh evidence that her subconscious had a strong streak of melodrama, Donna turned back to the CCTV photograph. The poorer quality was exercising a softening effect on the features of its subject. Together with the half-smile that curved the lips, the slight tilt to the head as he listened, the effect was strangely compelling.

"He is beautiful." She wasn't even aware that she had given voice to the thought until she looked up and caught her companions' regard. Carlyle cocked a quizzical eyebrow, causing her to hastily redirect her gaze towards Thompson.

As her eyes came to rest on his face, Donna was completely disconcerted by his startled expression. Obviously seeing his own momentary confusion mirrored in her face, his mouth twisted wryly as he responded, "I thought so."

Donna felt her mouth forming an 'O' of sudden comprehension. She glanced back down at the photograph, noting the oddly predatory smile again, the